7 Adeline
Branson and Dale formed a system that served them well, they did the research, made notes discussed the story that was formed from the background information and then discussed it in the afterhours daily briefing at Santini Air.
Moffet had told Michael the truth about Adeline in as much as he had taken her to the Caribbean.
It was unclear as to whether it was for a holiday to start with, however the records did show that Adeline had given birth to a little girl in a Haiti based hospital.
Where the infant was born prematurely.
Adeline was impressionable and rather naive. Her upbringing within the showbiz scene made her a dreamer with stars in her eyes, but she had little to no concept of how real life worked.
Michael, who knew Adeline was vulnerable, had perhaps mistakenly made it his priority to protect her first and love her second.
That attitude manifested itself as all business and no play. Michael lacked the excitement Adeline so desperately craved.
She liked the intrigue of what bad boys had to offer - which was nothing good.
It was at Michaels work where all the excitement existed, and he used his time with the beautiful woman to balance his own life rather than create something to satisfy them both.
He realized that too late of course and Moffet ended up stealing her away.
Michael vowed he would never make that mistake again and he kept his promise and found his match in someone who was Adeline's complete opposite.
Adeline loved the adoration.
She loved the fashion
She loved the art
She loved the party lifestyle.
She loved all the things that money could buy.
Unfortunately, she didn't love herself enough to be confident in her own skin, and while she didn't want protection, she did want someone to look after her.
To handle her.
Adeline was the perfect candidate for a predator like Moffet. She was easily manipulated by someone that had Moffet's charisma and distinct undercurrent of danger.
He was that bad boy of her dreams, who's status spanned the circles that Adeline desired. The kind of circles that enabled her to rub shoulders with the people that she thought would increase her chances in the limelight, increase her chances of captivating those who could love and adore her.
And there was often a price to pay for those things.
Once she was drawn in, Moffet had control and took her down the rabbit hole of his self-proclaimed perversion.
Perhaps it was that perversion that caused the infant to arrive too early.
"What happened to the baby?" Jo asked with concern.
"We don't really know. We're not sure if the baby died shortly after birth or is Maxine, the daughter that died in prison. There's no record of her beyond those from a third world hospital that didn't produce discharge papers in connection to Adeline.
"And what about Adeline? Where did she end up or did Moffet torture and kill her too?" Saint John asked, assuming that Adeline was one of the girls that preceded Moffet's other victims they already knew about.
"Well, Michael had dug around a bit and connected the hospital with a local orphanage. That in turn led to the townsfolk chatter about a beautiful American woman who worked at St Ignatius, the orphanage in question.
"The short story was that she had some sort of memory loss and after recovering from extensive injuries and with no identity, she had nowhere to go. She somehow ended up at St. Ignatius where she further recuperated and ended up working there with thew children until she fell from her dormitory window back in ninety-four.
"Oh no!" Caitlin said sadly, "was it suicide?"
"That's what was reported but digging a little further I'm not so sure" Branson said, glancing over to Dale.
"Well," Dale started letting out a breath, still battling internally with the realization that there was so much wrong in the world.
"St Ignatius was a fine front for saving homeless children or children without parents, but looking into money trail, Michael leads us straight to the same names and connections of Moffet's little empire, the same banks, the same charities, the same politicians…." She said, counting on her fingers.
"The facade hid a far more sinister world. Not all the kids were homeless, nor were they without families." Branson added.
"So, Chapman wasn't kidding when he said that the numbers were a quota."
"No," Dale said with a shake of her head, "St. Ignatius was a breeding ground for Child trafficking."
Collective silence filled the board room.
"For what it's worth, it doesn't look like Adeline knew anything, she may have been far too…. mentally fragile to see beyond the complexity of her own predicament." Branson said with careful consideration.
"Unless she did know and couldn't live with herself" Jo said, hoping that if Adeline did know, that she at least had a conscience.
"Like mother like daughter, how very tragic." Caitlin said thinking that sometimes people just couldn't bear the weight of what they had done and ended it for themselves.
"Yeah maybe," Nash said, somewhat agreeing with what Caitlin said but for a vastly different reason. "Or she found out and was offed."
"Hmmm, I have to wonder," Branson said, voicing his thoughts out loud. "If she's actually dead at all?"
"Who, Adeline?" Asked Saint John.
"No, Maxine," Branson said, answering with a shake of his head.
"You think she's still alive?" Caitlin asked, her demeanor both surprised at Branson's casual statement and hopeful at the same time.
"I don't know, but at this point I am pretty sure that we can't trust anything that comes from those who continue to allow people to die in custody. You have to wonder, don't you?" He asked, gaining murmuring acknowledgement from the rest of the group before changing the subject to the other project that they were working on.
The Lady had made fine progress. She had been lightly tested at Branson's ranch, and no one was happier than Nash to get his butt back in the saddle.
Once all her systems were up and running smoothly, The Lady was due to be snuck back to The Lair for further intense assessment and recalibration of any updated weapons she would carry the next day.
Diego Jr wasn't going to miss out on the opportunity to finally take a ride on the machine that saved him and his mama all those years ago. He was due to fly back to Chile late the next evening and the crew would drop him off at LAX after a family dinner.
With the mammoth tasks of both Airwolf's completion and Michael's investigation wrapping up, it was time to collectively report back to Project Guardian and finally find out what was in those mission envelopes.
Chapman's unconventional methods seemed to have had the desired effect.
His Commander in Chief had hand picked him to head Project Guardian and they had spent years patiently chipping away at shoring up the foundations for what was about to unfold.
He could have done the usual, and briefed the Santini crew prior to their discovery of evidence, like he would have done with his other agents - but that was the thing.
These fine people were not agents.
They read like the Gilligan's Island intro.
There was a hotshot captain.
A tech geek.
The Billionaire, and his love.
A beautiful pilot.
A Veteran and his girl Cait.
Here on the resurrected A56-7W project.
It could have been a Hollywood script.
And just like Hollywood, truth could be stranger than fiction.